The Devil's Tears
by NekoDeijii
Summary: The unlikely encounter of a shy Russian and a Chinese runaway. Present day AU with angst, fluff, and eventually something a little more exciting. Rochu!
1. Chapter 1

The Devil's Tears

Authors note: This story was inspired by the Angus and Julia Stone song by the same name. This is my first long fic so my dyslexic brain apologizes in advance for all editorial mistakes. Feedback is greatly appreciated! NekoDeijii

Present day; Surgut, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug RUSSIA

Yet another burning sensation in his throat. This seemed to be all Ivan could do; it looked like water and he knew that if he kept coming back to this place, this terrible place, that soon vodka would be his water just like it was to his father. But he didn't know what else he could do.

"The devil's drink that's what that is right there Ivan!" he could hear his mother's voice telling him. She was more right than she knew. As he stared at the empty shot glass without blinking, he realized that his vision was going blurry. He was crying. This happened to him sometimes, starting to cry without noticing. He made no attempt to wipe the tears from his pail face. He watched as one tear after another fell in to the glass in front of him. The Devil's tears he thought to himself. That was the only way he could think of what was going on in his head the, devil's work. How else could he be feeling the way he did about… about a man.

He had actually been looking for his father the first time he say the boy about one month earlier. Ivan was in a bar that was near the Transfiguration cathedral in downtown asking about his father's whereabouts, Ivan lived just outside of the Siberian city of Surgut. Although not a small city it isn't really a tourist attraction and foreigners were few and far between. So you could imagen Ivan's surprise when a man walked in the door of the bar who clearly didn't belong. He almost looked like he could have been one of the natives but his skin was to white, his build to slender, and his hair… falling just past his collar bones it was a dark brown that shown like silk in the yellow light of the bar. It was a deep brown, the kind of deep color that a man could lose himself in.

"Drink. Strong drink." The stranger said to the bar tender as he sat in one of the tall chars.

"Yah I saw him. He was drunk off his ass at 11. He couldn't have gone far." The bar tender said to Ivan but the tall Russian wasn't listening anymore. He was staring at this man; he was more beautiful than anything Ivan had ever seen. His entire being was soft, with even skin and a round face. He had never see anyone like this before. Ivan didn't know what to make of the stranger.

"Where are you from?" he blurted out. Ivan felt the blood rush to his face. What was he doing! He hardly said a word to people he had known for years, much less going around talking to total strangers in bars.

"China" the stranger said without lifting his gaze from the glass of vodka that was in front of him. Yao didn't know what to make of this strange colorless liquid, but he did know better than to return the gaze of a stranger who was staring at you; especially when the stranger was a giant of a man who looked like he could killed a bear with his bare hands.

"Kid either sit down or get out I don't need you bringing any unwanted attention by just standing there looking suspicious." The tender was referring to the raids that the cops had been conducting on bars and liquor stores in the attempt to stop the distribution of uncertified vodka.

To his utter surprise Ivan sat down in a seat two away from the Chinaman. The bartender pored him a shot and walked away.

They both sat there in silence for a long time. Ivan didn't mind silence usually. He was quite used to it since he didn't live in the city. But this was different, it was a thick silence that was just begging to be broken. Eventually Yao yielded to its demand in his broken Russian. "I need lodging, where do I go?" he asked the bartender.

"There is a hotel just down the street. I'm sure they have room at this time of year." Said the giant gestured towards the icicles that had formed on the windows. Everyone had told Yao that the Russians where mean people and that he shouldn't go there, which the minute he got of the plain he understood completely. Every person he came across was scowling and not one person had any patients for his terrible Russian. But in this random bar in a city in Siberia he found the only person in Russia with all the patients in the world, although he didn't know it yet.

Yao finally looked over at the man. What he saw was not at all what he was expecting. He was very tall with broad shoulders and fearfully toned arm muscles that stretched the stiches his thick knitted sweater, but his face seemed out of place to Yao. It was pail and slender with soft locks of blond hair that made seeing his eyes difficult. All of this was grasped by Yao in a single moment since the second he looked up the giant began to blush uncontrollably and managed to get his hair to cover his face even more than before. "I that I get an 'Asian glow' when I drink but I had no idea white people got so red?" Yao thought to himself as he pushed his empty glass towards the bartender.

Ivan took his shot, and put his hand out. He felt his stomach hitch as if he were going to hurl, weather it was from the vodka or the unusual social interaction Ivan didn't know but he knew that if he didn't do this he would regret it.

"I am Ivan Braginsky." Yao took his hand and shook it with more force than Ivan had expected. "My name is Wang Yao, Nice to meet you."

"Why have you come here?" it seemed absurd to Ivan that anyone would want to come to this place.

"I need change. And I found job at the port." This wasn't really a lie, but it certainly wasn't the whole story. Yao was supposed to be at Peking University one of the best universities in China, to study economics but he left without telling anyone one day and headed to Russia. He wasn't sure what he was doing there, he just knew he needed a change.

"Will you make sushi? Russian sushi, that would be funny" the awkwardness was heavy around them, Ivan knew he had said something wrong, how could he not have. That was what he did, he was the awkward kid in class that sat in the corner and would look at people sideways from under his curls. That one person who no one wanted to partner with in group projects.

"Sushi is Japanese, I am Chinese I do not make sushi." Yao tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice but it was hard.

"I'm so sorry! I well I…you see I have never met anyone from China or Japan so the difference is not very clear to me. Um… what is something that the Chinese do that the Japanese do not?" his hands where clammy. Why are you putting yourself threw this Ivan? He could just stop talking and leave the bar. What the hell was he doing!

"Kung fu. The Chinese people are very good at Kung fu."

"What is that?" Ivan asked.

"I show you." Yao stood up and motioned for Ivan to do the same. The second Ivan had both feet on the ground and was in front of Yao he was on the round. And Yao was standing next to him like nothing had happened. The stranger handed him a hand and pulled him up with great force.

"Are you alright." "Yes, Yes I am fine." Yao looked up at the giant and saw that he was smiling. His hair had been slightly pushed out of his face making his eyes clearly visible for the first time since entering the bar. Yao's breath caught in his chest, he had never seen anything as beautiful as the eyes of the Russian standing in front of him. They seemed almost to be the color of his favorite flower, zǐ sè or violet.

"Good bye, I think that is my father" the giant said as he quickly headed for the door. Yao wanted to scream out wait! But he didn't. He didn't say anything he only starred at the empty doorway with the image of those eye stuck in his mind.


	2. The Devil's Tears Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Authors note: Hey guys! Hope that this chapter is a little less messy than the last. And again comments actually mean the world to me so please leave anything that is on your mind below! I hope you enjoy, NekoDeijii

"Father!" there is no response from the old man. He just keeps shuffling forward towards nothing. Ivan stands and stairs at the slumped figure in front of him for a moment before starting after him. 'What happened to him?' The tall man's mind flickering back to a memory of his father standing tall before him in his crisp navy uniform. "Father it's me, your son Ivan. Let's go home okay?" He says as he shakes the old man's shoulder gently. Mr. Braginsky stares up at his son blankly for a moment and then nods slightly once he managed to focus his eyes and register what his son had said.

It all started to fall apart for Mr. Braginsky when his daughter Natalya, tragically died two years earlier. Unable to except what had happened he turned to his friend Vodka and never spoke to another person. 'But what about the boy? Shouldn't he be suffering the most?' People would say. This was true, but Ivan knew that with his father in this state he couldn't take the luxury of breaking down. So he did what any teenager in that position would do and bottled up all of his emotions, hiding them deep within himself.

As the conspicuous duo walk down the freezing street, Ivan leading the way to his car he hears the shattering of glass and immediately turns on his heels. The old man has collapsed face first on to the snowy ground, the almost empty bottle of vodka shattered in to a million pieces next to him. "Gospodi bozhe moy*" Ivan says as he picks up his father. People stare as he half drags the thin but very tall man the rest of the way to his car. This certainly wasn't the first time that Ivan has had to take his father's unconscious body home, in fact it had become part of his normal routine. Ivan, only 19 years old doesn't go to school, instead he works every day except for Sundays on his father's fishing boat as his mother tends to their small stand at the fish market. Ivan tells himself that he likes being alone in the vastness of the ocean on the small boat but deep down he knows that it's not good for him. It gives him too much time to think, too much time to be stuck in his head. He misses those days as a child with his father on the same boat when he would return after months of being away. His father was not what you would call the loving type but he always seemed so proud of his son when he would untie the boat from the cleat and push away from the port. Ivan craved this approval from his father like any young boy would and would go out with his father any time he could. Because of this he learn a great deal quite young. Luckily since he had to take on all these responsibilities sooner than anyone would have expected.

After a bit more than an hour of trying not to let the car spin on the ice covered roads he and Mr. Braginsky finally make it home. Mr. Braginsky is conscious again, he gets out of the car and heads inside slowly, the feeling of shame and humiliation almost dripping off of his slumped shoulders. Ivan walks strait to his bathroom to try and get the stench of fish out of his hair. The smell was the one thing that Ivan could really do without. He knows that there's basically no point in trying to get rid of it, it has permeated his entire being and stained almost every piece of clothing he owns. You'd think that he would get used to it but he doesn't, showering in the steaming water letting the burning wash over him, he wonders how hot the water would really have to be to cleanse him from all of his demons…

He wakes up to the screeching of his alarm, 3:30 am. If only his parents had bought a home closer to town he wouldn't have to wake quite as early. They thought that it would be nice to raise their kids in their small forest near the creek, the school was on the edge of town so it wouldn't be too far from them anyways. But now Ivan has to get to the docks by 4:45 if he wants to stay on schedule. He rolls off his bed, quickly pulling cloths on to his cold naked body and heads to the kitchen where he brews a pot of coffee, he grabs his coat and keys as he waits. Once he has poured himself one travel mug and then a second one for later he heads out. As he unties the boat and pushes off from the quay, second travel mug perched precariously on the side of the boat, his thoughts begin to spin around in his mind. Coiling up the rope Ivan's mind stops on a particular face that had been lingering on the edge of his thoughts ever since he saw it. The long dark hair and soft pail skin of the strange man in the bar begins to consume Ivan's thoughts and he wonders if he will ever see him again. 'Why didn't I, I don't know, give him my number or something' He could help him navigate the city or tech him some Russian. Ivan wonders what it would be like to touch that beautiful hair. Quickly realizing that this isn't a thought that he should be having, even in the solitude of his boat. He shakes his head trying to get rid of the feeling of longing, so foreign, but so very strong.

Ivan returns ashore after about five hours on the water with a decent catch. As he hulls the crates of fish off his boat he notices that a small crowed has gathered around one of the stands of the market. Finally realizing that the uncharacteristically early crowd are in fact huddled around his mother's market stand, Ivan jaunts over to the crowd to see what is going on and… there he is. Yao stands behind the piles of produce glancing around nervously at all the people. Mrs. Braginsky is darting round trying to help all of the new costumers and is pointing at things for Yao to get for her. Ivan just about chokes on the ridiculously large gulp of air that he takes in when he sees the foreigner. It appears that most of the people shopping where just there to take a peek at the stranger, buying small things but lingering a little too long after making their purchase.

Ivan is frozen to the spot where he stands just behind the crowd of people staring at the long, dark haired man. Yao who is desperately trying to understand half of the Russian being rapidly spoken around him looks up trying to find the woman who had asked for nothing but a small bag of salt but instead of the sour face of the old lady his eyes fall on the face of a tall blond man with a huge purple scarf hanging around his neck. The beautiful lilac eyes of the man he thought he would never see again staring right back at him.

i

i Oh my god, oh my god*


End file.
